by Diego Rivera
Back in Paris, the desire did not leave me. For some time, I had been thinking about making a trip back to Mexico at the end of 1910. Now this idea became almost an obsession.
Before that, however, I wanted to show something of my work in one of the large exhibitions.
My compatriots considered acceptance at the official French Salon d’Automne as the apex of artistic recognition. Consequently, I made that my goal. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that I would be compromising my artistic integrity. Every true master of modern French painting had been rejected by this or similar academic salons which fostered pompous mediocrity and academicism.
However, if I succeeded in getting my work shown, my subsidy would be extended another two years. I needed this time to carry out a plan I had formulated: to digest all the forms of modern painting the better to eliminate them from my own artistic idiom. Thus I decided to make the sacrifice.
As my entry for the exposition, I worked on a canvas called “The House on the Bridge,” which I had started in Bruges three months before. I tried to do my best by pushing myself to a maximum of emotional sincerity. At the same time, I also hoped that my entry would be rejected by the jury. This would prove that the jury was unfit to recognize even a measure of sincerity, and would link me with the masters whom I admired.
I was in conflict as well over the sheer economic issue. It was good, of course, to have the grant from the government of Veracruz and be free to pursue my own plan of artistic development. But I also wanted to be able to face life by myself, to solve my economic problems by my work. I had begun to feel restive under patronage, fearing that dependence might sap my strength. With such inner conflicts driving me almost to the point of despair, I grimly worked on my project for three long months.
At last the time arrived for me to send the painting to the jury. I awaited the jury’s decision with apprehension. Whatever it was, it must disappoint me. Acceptance would be a reproach, but rejection is always a blow.
Then the word came: my painting would be shown.
I will always remember the anguish this news gave me. When my comrades congratulated me, I quarreled with them violently. For me to be congratulated over acceptance by the Salon d’Automne was an insult.
Nevertheless, on opening day, I managed to find a small measure of balm. Two thousand artists were represented by about six thousand canvases, and in this vast conglomeration, mv painting really seemed to stand out. Though it looked academic, it was touched with a quality of sensitivity which set it apart from its more vulgar neighbors. I began to take heart for my future.
During the period of the exposition, I undertook an extensive study of the most recent creations of the Paris school. When the show ended, I went to Brittany for the summer to work at new paintings to bring back to Mexico. It was now that I began to shed some of my old feeling of inferiority. The work I did in Brittany contained good plastic qualities. Belonging to this period is my painting “Shipwreck,” which possesses an architectonic grandeur and even a certain poetical quality.
In the fall, I returned to Paris to get ready for my trip home. Rolling up all my completed paintings, I departed for Spain, stopping there only long enough to pick up other canvases I had left in the care of a friend. I sailed from Santander to Mexico in September, 1910.
WHERE I WAS IN 1910
BETWEEN THE SUMMER OF 1909 in London and that fall of 1910, some of my ideas about art had been strengthened and others had been changed. I understood certain deficiencies of the work I had done in Europe. Also, I began to see my objectives in life as a human being and how my art could serve them. More valuable than technical lessons from European painting and sculpture were the lessons I had gained from observing European life. I now had a vision of my vocation—to produce true and complete pictures of the life of the toiling masses.
The workers I had seen in Europe were brothers of the poor in Mexico, from whom sprang everything I have ever loved. Deep inside me, I had discovered an enormous artistic reservoir. It was of the kind that had enabled the American genius Walt Whitman to create, on a grander scale than anyone had before, the poetry of the common people, working, suffering, fighting, seeking joy, living and dying.
As yet this was like a vision I had seen in sleep with the passivity of a dreamer. When I sought to put it into form, it eluded me. It was too original, and I was not mature enough to realize it.
Perhaps my adolescence had been excessively prolonged, as a kind of punishment of the man for stealing years from the boy. My real coming to maturity coincided with my second return to my homeland in 1921. It was as sudden as my advent into sex, hand in hand with my first mistress. Between 1910 and that marvelous year, I often felt as if I were two people. One painted and was unhappy with whatever he did; the other knew what he must do but could not do it. At times I thought I was suffering from a pathological condition which kept me imprisoned in a painful mental darkness.
In 1910, I was twenty-four years old and far from a failure commercially. The work I had sent back from Europe had made a strong impression, and many commissions awaited me at home. Governor Dehesa had instructed me to arrange a show of my paintings before the end of the year in connection with the centennial celebration of Mexico’s Independence.
Yet I was restless, dissatisfied, impatient.
HOMECOMING!
I CAN HARDLY REMEMBER ANYTHING of my voyage from Spain to Mexico. All I have retained is a marvelous vision of the Azores emerging from the sea. In the distance, they look like a series of mountain tops, then an idyllic landscape with majestic waterfalls spilling down the mountains.
As soon as I disembarked in Mexico, I was struck as by a gigantic shock. My whole being tingled. I seemed on the verge of a magnificent discovery that would reveal the meaning of my life and the life around me. But all too soon the feeling passed, and I returned to my normal state of mind.
On the way home, I was busily making observations, particularly of color. The faces of Europeans had been clear against more or less dark backgrounds. In Mexico, the backgrounds were luminous and the faces, hands, and bodies dark against them. This discovery suggested new things I could do in my paintings. I was deeply moved by the panorama of landscape on my journey across the tropical and semitropical expanses of my homeland. When I finally reached the heights surrounding Mexico City, I could almost feel the landscape permeating me.
Other emotions awaited me at home. My family was then living in a three-story house on Carcuz María Street, near the Merced market. It was not unlike a house we had lived in during my childhood, and when I saw it for the first time, the resemblance precipitated a flood of memories. Climbing up the stairway, I saw my mother halfway up. She turned, a look of astonishment on her face. Planning a surprise, I had sent no message that I was coming.
When I was almost beside her, I saw her eyes widening with a strange look. She was staring over my shoulder at something that seemed to affect her like an apparition. Instinctively, I turned my head in the direction of her gaze. Outlined against the entranceway was the silhouette of a thin, tall Indian woman who, when she saw my eyes, stretched her arms out to me.
I bolted down the stairway, my blood racing. As the woman took me in her arms, the light seemed to dim. I could only gasp, “Antonia! ” It was my old Indian nurse. She kissed me all over my face, and I returned her kisses. My arms held her body tremblingly.
She cried, “My child, I have arrived in time. Eight days ago I dreamed about you in my house in the Sierras where you lived as a child. When I awoke, I began walking here, feeling that every step was bringing me nearer to you. I was not deceived. I reached here in time to take you in my arms before your own mother did.”
At that moment, I recalled the strange feeling I had had on leaving the ship.
My mother was weeping and looking at Antonia strangely. In a tone of sadness mixed with defiance, she said, “Yes, I am certain that you dreamed this news about him. I know you possess him, because I never have. That is w
hy I have been so sick and unhappy. But if only because I gave birth to him from my own body, you shall never be able to claim him truly as yours.”
My Indian foster mother, twice as tall and twice as beautiful as my real mother, looked angrily at her.
“Yes, it is true,” she replied. “You gave birth to him. But if it were not for me, he would not be alive. You were not able to keep his life going. I was. That is why he is more mine than yours. Were you able to see him when he was far away and to count your steps so that you could meet him the moment he arrived? Could you? If you could not . . .”
At that, her voice broke. My mother took her in her arms. Holding one another, the two began to cry, desperately, hopelessly, the sorrow of all womankind in their voices. Watching them, I could feel myself growing small, thin, insignificant, empty. What could I offer to compare with this stupendous expression of love?
Then I started to laugh and laugh. I took both of them in my arms and kissed them with drunken madness. After we had all calmed down a bit, it occurred to me that my great-aunt Vicenta was not in the house. With new sorrow, my mother told me that she had only recently died. She took me to the deathbed in which my great-aunt had lain just four days before. Her absence added to my feeling of emptiness.
As I stood looking down at the counterpane, something live crawled painfully out of a nearby dresser drawer and across the floor toward me. It was my childhood pet, my dog Blackie, now blind and so feeble with age he could hardly wag his tail. When he reached my feet, he lay down and began making strange sounds. I bent down and took his head in my hands. He touched my cheek with his tongue, then became limp, and with just a slight convulsion, died.
My return home, the clairvoyant arrival of Antonia, her crying scene with my mother, the news about my great-aunt Vicenta, the death of Blackie, who it seemed had only waited for me to come back to die—all occurring together, threw me into a state of terrific confusion. I remember little else about that day, except that my father appeared, summoned from his office by my sister, and that as he greeted me with warm explosions of affection, I suddenly lost consciousness.
A WITCHCRAFT CURE
A NUMBER OF BLANK DAYS PASSED. I was very ill. Most of the time I was in a coma. In brief intervals of wakefulness, I would see Antonia beside my bed, silent and immobile. My mother was away most of the day, hunting for a bigger house for all of us to live in. One day, when she came home with medicine prescribed by a doctor friend, Antonia vehemently restrained her from giving it to me.
I was still in bed and still feverish when my periods of consciousness began to lengthen. Since I awakened delirious many times in the night, Antonia remained at my bedside night and day.
She saw to it that the soft light of the clay lamp was constantly replenished with the animal grease which fed it and that the door to the corridor was closed to keep out any stronger light. For most of my illness, Antonia went without sleep. Around her erect form hung an almost visible aura of authority. When my father and mother visited me, she allowed them to come no further than the half-open door, where I could barely hear them whisper. She only fed me meals she had bought and prepared herself.
Convalescence brought with it a feeling of renewal and rebirth. Now Antonia permitted herself an occasional nap.
One morning, she came in to dress me, as she had begun to do each day. She combed my hair as she had when I was a child in the mountains. Then she took me in her arms and kissed me. I was suddenly afraid.
“What do you mean by this?” I asked fearfully. “Do you intend to leave me?”
Antonia laughed. Despite her age and her primitive life, her teeth were still strong and gleaming.
“No, my child. How could I leave you? I could never leave you, and don’t you forget that. I mean never! No matter how far you may go, no matter how quickly you may travel on the path you are to follow after this day, no matter how many roads you must take, no matter what difficulties you encounter in building your tower, I’ll be with you always. If need be, I’ll cross seven rivers and seven seas and seven countries and each of them thirteen and twenty times to come back to you. As long as the sun shines, I will be with you always, my child, always.”
With that, she laughed gaily and then began an incantation which was part of a magic rite symbolizing the transference of the spirit of life from one thing (an egg, in this instance) to another (me).
She took the egg from the space between her breasts and handed it to me. It was as warm as if it had been newly laid. Then she unwrapped a bone needle from a cotton cloth and pierced the egg at each end.
Kissing the egg, she said, “Now, my child, you kiss it and drink its inside as quickly as you can.”
I did as Antonia bade me. The egg was emptied in a gulp.
Antonia took the hollow shell from my hands. All at once she began to chant loudly, joyously, in her native Tarascan. Singing, she led me into the kitchen, where she prepared a small wood fire. When the fire was ablaze, she threw the shell, the needle, and what seemed to be a small package into its midst. She vigorously fanned the flames with a straw fan, the volume of her voice rising.
Suddenly, as if they had leapt from some great hearth in my throat, the words of Antonia’s song came to me, and I began to sing along with her. When the needle, the shell, and the package were consumed in the fire, Antonia put her left arm around my neck and kissed me many times while continuing to fan the fire with her right hand. Between her kisses, I heard the word “never” repeated over and over again. After a while she released me.
Putting the fan in my hand, she said to me, “Wait for me but don’t stop fanning the fire until the last cinder turns to ash.”
I did as she asked, not even thinking it strange. Antonia left the kitchen, and I fanned till nothing but ashes were left in the fireplace. Then I sat down and waited for her return. I waited all that morning and afternoon. By nightfall, seeing my vigilance unrewarded, my mother declared, “What a terrible and peculiar person Antonia is! What has happened to her? She left just like that without even saying good-bye.”
During the next several days, my mother and father made inquiries about her of the police. They feared she might have met with an accident. Four days after her disappearance, they put an announcement in the papers, but with no response.
I, however, knew Antonia better than my parents. I realized that her departure was no more mysterious than her arrival had been. Little by little, I began to accept it.
At the end of dinner one night, my mother asked me with tears in her eyes, “But after she came to meet you by a real miracle, don’t you have any feelings for Antonia? Aren’t you worried about her? Are you the monster I feared you were when you opened the live mouse to see how a child comes to life?”
I had no language to answer my mother. She became furious at my silence and screamed hysterically, “My son, I am less than a dog to you. Isn’t it so? Answer me at once!”
Without being able to control myself, hard as I tried, I burst into loud laughter. Then I sang the Tarascan song Antonia had sung to me the last time we were together.
My mother’s eyes grew wide. Real terror showed in her face. Glancing at me as if she feared that I would do her some harm, she got out of her chair and ran to the living room where my father was working at his books. After a while, I grew quiet. I went to find my mother, to placate her.
Approaching the living room, I heard her whisper to my father, “It is necessary to do something for the boy. I’m afraid he’s out of his mind.”
My father laughed softly. “No, Chiquita, he’s all right. You gave birth to him, but that one gave him life. No matter where she is, he feels she will always be with him and will never leave him.”
“ Por Dios! You have gone as mad as the boy. What do you mean? Where is Antonia now? What has happened to her? Why will she never leave him? I don’t understand. Why is it my destiny to live with people as crazy as the two of you?” And my mother began to cry bitterly.
Stealthi
ly I went away. I walked out of the house into the street. The night was clear, familiar and warm.
No, Antonia would never leave me.
REVOLUTIONARY WITH A PAINTBOX
HAVING REGAINED MY STRENGTH, I began to paint again. I was determined to exorcise the Spanish influences remaining in me. I worked chiefly on landscapes into which I tried consciously to infuse a strong Mexican character. Of these, I know only one that has been preserved; it is a landscape in the Paul Antebi collection in Mexico City.
The effect of these efforts did not prove lasting. When I returned to Europe in 1912, I experienced a complete regression in style. In-Toledo, I did a painting which, though it suggests a growing awareness of naturalism and cubism, shows the influence of El Greco. This painting was purchased for the King collection in New York; about twenty-five years ago, it was in the possession of a Mrs. Murphy, who loaned it for an exhibit sponsored by the New York Museum of Modern Art. In the same year in Paris, I painted a portrait which shows a similar Spanish derivation. Titled “The Man with the Umbrella,” it appeared in an exhibition organized by the Mexican artist Angel Zarraga. I do not know what was the fate of this work, nor do I much care.
During the four years I had been away from Mexico, the political situation had deteriorated, and unrest was reaching a revolutionary pitch. Díaz, sensing that the end of his thirty-year dictatorship was near, yet unwilling to relinquish absolute power, was resorting to open terrorism.
One day a friend of mine named Vargasrea and I had a lunch appointment with a third comrade, General Everaro Gonzales Hernández, in a popular restaurant in Mexico City. Vargasrea and I were late, because I had been painting in a distant part of the city, and it took us longer to get to the restaurant than we had anticipated.